The Questioner
by Andromeda Penn
Summary: Clarisse meets Montag, and she thinks there is more to this fireman that meets the eye. Clarisse's POV.


**A/N: I wrote this for an English project last year, and I still like it so I've decided to share it. Hope you like it! Most of the dialogue is from the book; the tags are my own.**

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is Ray Bradbury's. I do not own any of these characters or the world they live in.**

The Questioner

It was evening in the city. Night, really. The only sounds to be heard were the wistful whispers of trees and the rustling of autumn leaves on the white, moonlit sidewalk. There also walked a girl, whose dark eyes watched her feet mix the swirling leaves. Her slim face emitted an unending curiosity in the world around her, and she seemed to miss no movement of the landscape. She turned at the sound of a footstep, and saw a familiar shadow from the house next door.

The man stopped in what seemed to be surprise, and his mouth opened a crack. The girl's eyes were immediately drawn to the salamander on his black jacket and phoenix disc on the chest; she seemed almost hypnotized.

"Of course, you're our new neighbor, aren't you?" the man spoke.

"And you must be the fireman," said the girl, her eyes lingering on his jacket.

"How oddly you say that," voiced the fireman.

"I'd have known it with my eyes shut," she said slowly.

"What—the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains. You can never wash it off completely."

"No, you don't," the girl replied. There was a pause.

"Kerosene is nothing but…perfume to me," he said, when the pause stretched itself into a drawn-out silence.

"Is it really?" the girl questioned.

The fireman answered without pause. "Of course. Why not?"

Again the mysterious white-clad girl paused, as if to think, and replied: "I don't know." Turning to face the sidewalk above which their houses rested, she asked, "Do you mind if I walk back with you? I'm Clarisse McClellan."

"Clarisse. Guy Montag. Come along. What are you doing so late wandering around? How old are you?"

Clarisse worked over the questions in her head, and answered, "Well, I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, tell them seventeen and insane. Isn't this a lovely time of night to walk? I like to smell things and look at things, and sometimes stay up all night, walking, and watch the sun rise."

There was another silence. Clarisse said thoughtfully, "You know, I'm not afraid of you at all."

Guy, startled, said, "Why should you?"

"So many people are. Afraid of firemen, I mean. But you're just a man, after all…"

Guy paused with a perplexed expression on his face, but Clarisse did not elaborate. The two conversed awhile longer before they reached their homes. Then, seeming to remember a forgotten query, Clarisse turned towards Montag and asked: "Are you happy?"

"Am I _what_? Of all the nonsense!" His reply cut through the air to Clarisse's ears as she ran to her front door.*

As soon as Clarisse entered her house, she strode into the parlor where her parents and uncle sat conversing about the newspaper. When she relaxed onto the couch next to her uncle, he turned and asked her a question, but before she could answer her parents pelted her with more.

"What were you doing out there with that man? Who is he? What does he want?" came the inevitable inquiries.

"Oh, he's the fireman next door. Did you know he's never even thought about the dew on the grass in the morning? Or the man in the moon? He doesn't even know if he's happy!"

"Clarisse, you've got to be careful. _You don't know what he wants._ What if he's trying to expose our secrets?"

Clarisse looked up through the skylight as she tried to form her answer. Above her a dark shape passed overhead, then another, and another.

Suddenly there was a tremendous roar as if a monster was fighting the very heavens above her, an eardrum-ripping scream of fighter jets, seven shrieking roars of terror.

Clarisse's hands flew to cover her ears, but this did little to dampen the sound. As suddenly as they came, they were gone, bringing after them the deathly howls of the sky.

As her family recuperated, Clarisse continued with her idea of Montag as if the jets had solidified her thought.

"Uncle, he's a caring person," Clarisse continued. "No, that's not right. He cares, but doesn't realize what he's done to the books, what he does to them. I think if I just talk to him, he'll realize what he's been missing, so he can be happy."

"Well, he could be acting. You know, Clarisse," (her father, now) "This could be something educational, since you so hate going to school—"

"But I just don't learn from school. An hour of TV class, an hour of baseball or soccer or running, but I know I've told you before, we never ask questions. You know, Dad, we can't ever learn anything without questioning. Supposing at what was, what is, who, when, where, why, how. They just tell us things, as if that's supposed to teach us anything. I wonder—"

"Clarisse."

"—people didn't just—"

"Clarisse!" Clarisse stopped talking mid-sentence.

"See if you can talk him into saving some books, or at least wake him up a bit. That would be a fine joke, if the fireman himself saved the city from fire," said her uncle.

Laughter rang out in their house; it was a warm, full sound, not forced like that of the people Clarisse saw at school. Her uncle changed the subject to how "people never seem to keep keepsakes anymore, they just waste everything they buy."

"Well, you know, this is the age of the disposable tissue. Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush. Everyone using everyone else's coattails…"

Weeks passed; Clarisse went to her weekly psychiatrist appointment and fed him the usual nonsense. The psychiatrist again told her that she was an onion in the flesh, and Clarisse again thought that she would keep him busy peeling away the layers.

The next week Clarisse saw much more of Guy Montag. Several sunny days in a row when flowers bloomed Clarisse left a bouquet of flowers on his porch, and the next day they were gone. She walked him to the subway every day and informed him of her various revelations; how leaves smelt of cinnamon, how billboards stretch out so people going one hundred miles an hour see them, and how rainwater tastes like wine. Clarisse told Guy of everything from the shallow tendencies of the people her age to the fake happiness of the world. Eventually she noticed a change in his behaviors and mannerisms; he seemed more alive and observed things when around her. One day as they walked to the subway Guy asked Clarisse if she had ever noticed the way springtime leaves shone like emeralds in the morning, and Clarisse replied that no, indeed, she had not. There also lurked sadness behind his eyes; perhaps all wasn't well at the firehouse.

A week later there came a shock: Clarisse's uncle had spoken too openly about one thing and another, and was carted off to jail. Perhaps this should not have been a surprise, for her uncle's reputation of being outspoken about books and freedom in the past easily caused him trouble.

Clarisse was shaken awake in the dark of night by her mother and told to pack her things and head to the car. She did as she was told, and the family left quickly and quietly in the dead of night. As the car silently hummed away, Clarisse sat and wondered. She wondered about who, if any, would notice their absence. She wondered, what would Montag think? And she wondered most of all what would become of the one fireman who thought about the books he burned.


End file.
